Cretinist

I got this quote from Celsus at the Christian Crimeline site:

Interestingly enough, I have never run across this before, which surprised me. A google search only turns up the original site. Is it an authentic quote from Celsus? Is he a first century witness to Christians altering the Gospels?

Cretinist

Found the quote:

http://duke.usask.ca/~niallm/252/Celstop.htm

I'm surprised I haven't ran into this quote before.

Vinnie

Even Christian accused other Christians of corrupting the texts to fit their beliefs. See the firts quote below from Metzger:
Here are a few quotes from scholars:

"The number of deliberate alterations [of the NT] made in the interests of doctrine is difficult to assess. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Eusebius, and many other Church Fathers accused the heretics of corrupting the Scriptures in order to have support for their special views. -- Bruce Metzger

Some other quotes:

"'Many differences among the textual families visible in the great uncial codices of the 4th and 5th centuries existed already ca. 200 as we see from the papri and early translations. How could so many differences arise within a hundred years after the original books were written? The answer may lie in the attitude of the copyists toward the NT books being copied. These were holy books because of their content and origins, but there was no slavish devotion to their exact wording. They were meant to be commented on and interpreted, and some of that could be included in the text. Later when more fixed ideas of the canon and inspiration shaped the mind-set, attention began to center on keeping the exact wording."2. - Raymond Brown

"We must allow for evolution of the gospel material at all stages of its transmission, including after it was shaped into a distinctive gospel." 3 -- Margaret Davies & E.P. Sanders

"NT textual critics have been deluded by the hypothesis that the archetypes of the textual tradition which were fixed ca. 200 CE -- and how many archetypes for each Gospel? -- are (almost) identical with the autographs. This cannot be confirmed by any external evidence. On the contrary, whatever evidence there is indicates that not only minor, but also substantial revisions of the original texts have occurred during the first hundred years of the transmission."4a -- Helmut Koester

"Textual critics of classical texts know that the first century of their transmission is the period on which the most serious corruptions occur. Textual critics of the NT writings have been surprisingly naive in this respect"4d -- Helmut Koester

"In the 20th cent., however, there were uncovered pitfalls in discerning the exact Gk text underlying patristic citation. Was the father citing scripture by memory, approximation, or allusion; or did he have a written text before him? Even in the latter instance, was his a time of textual fluidity before there was a fixed text "canonical" text? There is also the danger that in copying a patristic writing a later scribe filled in the scripture citations from the text available to him (and thus a later text). (This is one way of explaining how the same citation appears in different forms in the same Father's writings.)."5 --New Jerome Biblical Commentary

Vinnie

Vinnie

Celsus is a second century (late 2d century) reference IIRC.

He provides evidence of the cardinal rule I cited by Sanders and Davies above:

"We must allow for evolution of the gospel material at all stages of its transmission, including after it was shaped into a distinctive gospel."

Vinnie

Cretinist

Yes, I meant 2nd century. I was thinking 150ish, and sometimes I mess up the whole century. Who the hell originally got to decide 1900-1999 would be called the 20th century anyway? That's always pissed me off...

But anyway, thanks for the other quotes. I need to get around to reading my copy of Ehrman's Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.

CX

Well, if the years 1-99 are the first century C.E....

As to Celsus, his original work does not survive. It is excerpted at length in an apology by Origen entitled Contra Celsum. Try kirby's site or just do a google and Origen + Celsus.

Peter Kirby

[Pedantic Hardass]
The first century consists of one hundred years, starting at 1 CE. To make it one hundred years, it has to include the year 100. So the second century began at 12:00 am on January 1, 101 CE.

The twentieth century ran from 1901 to 2000.
[/Pedantic Hardass]

best,
Peter Kirby

Boro Nut

This easter when you open your first egg instead of your none'th egg, you will know it was all your fault, so I'm blaming you from now on.

Boro Nut

Iasion

Greetings all,

Celsus also makes this telling critique :

"Clearly the christians have used...myths... in fabricating the story of Jesus' birth...It is clear to me that the writings of the christians are a lie and that your fables are not well-enough constructed to conceal this monstrous fiction"

(from Hoffmann's reconstruction, my ellipses)


Hey Peter, guys,
talking about dates

If Jesus was supposedly born on Dec. 25, that would be
Dec. 25, 1 AD
correct?

A few days later would be
Dec. 31st, 1 AD, right?

Would the next day be
Jan. 1st, 2 AD
i.e. the first day in the year 2 ?

But the year started on April 1st back then I think, so perhaps that means the year 1 AD lasted until
March 31st, 1 AD
with the next day
April 1st, 2 AD
being the first day in year 2 ?


So was the Year 1 AD really 7 days long, or 3 months long ?


Because the day BEFORE Jesus was born was surely
Dec. 24th, 1 BC

Nearly a year before was
Jan. 1st, 1 BC

With the day before that being
Dec. 31st, 2 BC ?

So,
was the year 1 BC only 358 days long?

That would make the total length of year 1 BC + 1 AD equal to 1 year, which means the BC years mismatch a number-line by two whole years, not just one for the missing zero year.



Iasion

CX

Isn't he great folks! The Fantastic Mr. Didactic! I bet you were running around on New Years 1999 pissing on everyone's "millennium" bash cornflakes. Actually...that was me so why did I say 1-99? Must be the antibiotics are nuking brain cells (or maybe it's the medicinal martinis)